“Cambridge -said Bal said to anyone who would listen- was a real cushy workplace.” A teaching post at that university was a coveted position for any intellectual, and for Bal also meant a departure from the harsh reality of the Civil War in Spain, whose development he followed mainly through letters from friends and family. Cambridge was a protective bubble, an ideal place to concentrate, study, learn, talk, and listen to Rosita playing the piano at teatime. There were also the concerts, the dressing up every night to go to receptions, lectures, chamber concerts ... all in a low voice, very British, as Bal was.

At Cambridge he taught literature (Cervantes, the Archpriest of Hita, Quevedo ...), took care of the sheltered Basque children, participated in meetings to support  the Spanish Republic, with fascism in the distant horizon, and worried about Rosita's family exiled in France.

The end of his contract at Cambridge in 1938 meant the beginning of another reality, the end of his dream world. Where to go?